I'm still waiting on consignments to sell, though I'm probably going to take matters into my own hands soon to get the more expensive gear sold. This leaves a lot of time to research replacements. I've been focused on prime lenses for a few years, though semi-wide to semi-tele are the style of primes I prefer. 50mm and 85mm primes are a given.

Does anyone have the Nikon 16-35mm f4 VR lens? How do you like it?

I was thinking of that instead of a 20mm f2.8 and 28mm f1.8 combo. I should eventually have a DX and FX camera that I plan on using together.

Positives and negatives for the zoom:
- VR with a wide angle lens seems potentially useful for hand-held video, but I can't find any example clips. I'd be interested to see if this can work with video and if it helps.
- More range of possibilities compared to the two primes.
- Looks like it is a big lens, so packing it might be a pita as I use two cameras a lot.
- The aperture is f4 maximum, but with wide angle, that isn't much of an issue. Although, missing out on the potential of that 28mm f1.8 would be a shame. The 20mm f2.8 seems kind of meh, but not much else in that range.

It's pretty amazing lens - I almost got it myself. The sharpness extremely good, although the F4 is a bit of a drag. The zoom range is fairly flexible.

VR could be useful for video, but make sure you get a camera that supports VR while recording movies. I would also make sure to use an external mic, since you can pick up the servo noise with the on-board mic.

I'm reluctant to purchase DX lenses, because that's probably not the direction I'll be going in the future. With a camera like the D800 that has pixel density close to a D7000, I think moving forward, I might just focus on FX cameras and FX glass because DX glass has a physical limitation in coverage. A piece of slower FX glass seems more appealing than a faster piece of DX glass, and I couldn't properly use the lens on a FX camera to achieve a true wide angle perspective like I could with the f4 zoom.

I'm pretty unfamiliar with VR and how it might or might not work in video. There just doesn't seem to be much out there demonstrating the difference. Some Nikons can't use it in video mode? Most of the video I've done lately consists of compilations with only a little bit audio from the scene, with a small digicam no-less, heh.

I guess it's a bit soon to be really researching this as I need to get this Pentax gear sold. Took most of the lenses out of consignment yesterday and already have a potential buyer for the 85mm. One step closer...

I forgot to mention that I do own the 17-55mm F2.8 DX. It's a fantastic lens. =)
Of course... it's not very useful to me anymore now that I'm using FX.

The DoF for F4 on full frame looks about F2.8 on a cropped body, as a side note.
It's worth considering the following instead of the 16-35mm (all with their own adv./disadv.):
1. Similar primes
2. 14-24mm
3. 24-120mm
4. 24-70mm

I read this line, "I should eventually have a DX and FX camera that I plan on using together." and thought you planned to use a DX camera with an FX camera exclusively.

I have the 14-24 f/2.8 that is both a fantastic wide zoom and a PITA at the same time. I like the 20mm f/2.8 for a lightweight wide (I might get one for hiking use). The 16-35mm f/4 is really nice too. I typically use a flash whenever I use the wide angle for anything other than landscapes so f/4 wouldn't bother me much.

I read this line, "I should eventually have a DX and FX camera that I plan on using together." and thought you planned to use a DX camera with an FX camera exclusively.

I have the 14-24 f/2.8 that is both a fantastic wide zoom and a PITA at the same time. I like the 20mm f/2.8 for a lightweight wide (I might get one for hiking use). The 16-35mm f/4 is really nice too. I typically use a flash whenever I use the wide angle for anything other than landscapes so f/4 wouldn't bother me much.

Using DX/FX bodies more for cost reasons than anything, but the DX camera (D7000 in my case) would be used occasionally when I want something smaller.

What I was just trying to say is that if I buy a piece of glass, I'd want it to work as intended on both formats, so I'd have to get only FX glass.

Thanks, those are some good points you make.

I agree with you there. The 14-24 is expensive and I'm not too fond of lenses that can't take filters, though I can recognize the quality that lens brings to the table.

I am starting to lean toward the 20mm/28mm combo instead of the zoom. Coming from Pentax, I did enjoy my 14mm f2.8 (APS-C only), so I think the 20mm would be a step up from that, especially when mounted to the FX camera. There are a lot more choices in Nikon/3rd party when it comes to in-production f-mount glass, which is nice. Besides wanting to get into full-frame, I was tired of trying to search out old out of production glass for Pentax.

KEH had some decent deals, so I decided to go with the 20mm f2.8 and 28mm f1.8 along with a 70-210 f4 Macro. Wasn't even planning on getting anything past 85, but the price was reasonable and it seems like a solid lens. Now just an 85 and either a D600 or D800 refurb.

All done with the switch, well, everything except some Pentax gear sitting at the local shop under consignment and this 14mm f2.8 lens I've having trouble selling at a reasonable price.

I decided to stick with primes for my main lenses and also went with the D600 instead of the D800 (wish I would have waited for that current D600 deal going on, but oh well...).

D7000
D600
20mm f2.8
28mm f1.8
50mm f1.8
85mm f1.8
70-210mm f4

Quantity wise, a lot less gear than I had with Pentax, but the properties of the D600 itself more than makes up for anything I'm missing. So far I'm getting consistent AF, which was an important hope with the switch.

The D600 isn't too much larger than the D7000. My main gripe is that the grip feels a bit short due to a lot of the weight being on the left, but it is manageable.